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HALCON product features

MVTec HALCON is the comprehensive standard software for machine vision with an integrated development environment (HDevelop) that is used worldwide.

  • HALCON provides outstanding performance and comprehensive support of computing hardware, special instruction sets like AVX512 and NEON, as well as GPU acceleration.
  • It serves all industries and is being used in hundreds of thousands of installations in all areas of imaging like alignment, calibration, completeness checks, identification, inspection, measuring & comparison, object & position recognition.
  • With its latest state-of-the-art machine vision technologies, such as comprehensive 3D vision and deep learning algorithms, HALCON enables you to get to the market as quickly as possible.
  • In addition to the large image processing library with more than 2,100 operators, HALCON also features a large variety of directly applicable example programs to make your daily work easier.
  • Beyond that, HALCON comes with free support by the highly experienced experts at MVTec. 

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HALCON features in a nutshell

Highest performance

Multicore processors and multiprocessor systems accelerate image processing systems enormously. The automatic operator parallelization (AOP) in HALCON actively supports this performance increase and has already proven itself successfully in industrial use. Here, intelligent algorithms decide whether an operation is to be parallelized - always taking into account the specific operation, the associated input data and the available hardware. 

Started on a multicore computer, HALCON automatically parallelizes the operators, distributing data such as images across multiple threads - one image per thread. In doing so, the existing HALCON program does not have to be modified to benefit from the automatic parallelization and corresponding performance increases. 

Image of parallel programming "parallelization"

HALCON also supports parallel programming, such as multithreaded programs, because the software is both thread-safe and entry-invariant. This allows multiple threads to call HALCON operators simultaneously. Image processing applications can thus be split into independent parts that run in parallel on different cores. HALCON also offers this feature within its integrated development environment (IDE): HDevelop also supports parallel programming for concurrent applications, even during export to C, C++ and .NET languages such as C# or VB.NET. 

Full Compatibility

Compatibility secures investments. Today's image processing software must still be able to withstand the demands of tomorrow and take technical progress into account. System landscapes are in flux and constantly changing. Therefore, MVTec HALCON supports not only a variety of image acquisition devices, but also different operating systems and programming languages. All our software releases are continuously maintained and are available for years. With a new version of HALCON you regularly benefit from many technical innovations, improvements, and enhancements. 

Directly run HDevelop programs within your application without compiling

“HDevEngine” is a library that acts as an interpreter and lets you directly load and execute HDevelop programs and procedures from within your C++, Visual Basic .NET, or C# application. With it, you can dynamically query the interfaces of loaded HDevelop procedures. 

Seamless integration of image acquisition devices

HALCON includes interfaces to hundreds of industrial cameras and frame grabbers (analog, GenICam, GigE Vision, CoaXPress, USB3 Vision, USB, IIDC 1394, MIPI CSI). Thanks to an open interface, other image acquisition devices can also be seamlessly integrated into HALCON. In addition, image data can also be transferred directly to HALCON via its memory address and many processor types are supported, both on PC and embedded systems.  

HALCON supports a wide range of difference processor types

This means, HALCON gets the most out of your hardware – not only on PCs, but also on embedded systems. Moreover, HALCON also actively exploits the power of multi-processor and multi-core computers, instruction set extensions like NEON, SSE2, AVX2, and AVX512, as well as GPU acceleration. With the generic AI Accelerator Interface (AI²), HALCON can also use supported AI accelerator hardware to speed up the inference part of deep learning applications. 

HALCON supports a multitude of different digital I/O devices.

Thus, HALCON enables scenarios of the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) as well as agile production processes, increasing production efficiency (e.g., by predictive maintenance). Here, HALCON communicates with the respective system servers as an OPC UA client.

Compatibility with operating systems and programming languages

HALCON works under Windows, Linux and macOS. This applies to the library as well as to the interactive programming environment HDevelop. Here you can find an overview of the system requirements. In addition, the whole HALCON library can be accessed via a wide range of different programming languages like C, C++, Python, C# or .NET. 

Outstanding Technologies

Professional Service and Support

HALCON comes with a wide range of service and support options, MVTec offers you to realize your machine vision task in the best possible way. MVTec's goal: quickly get you started with HALCON, so you can deploy successful machine vision projects in no time. 

We will support you with feasibility studies or a free application evaluation. You can also count on us when it comes to porting our software to your platform. In our product-specific training courses and in workshops tailored to your needs, you will receive suitable application support – online or in person. 

Whenever you need help using HALCON your contact person at MVTec or your local distributor will be happy to assist you. 

In addition, we make every effort to bring you helpful tutorials & videos, interesting articles from our developer experts, and engaging news through our various social media channels, newsletters, via trainings and webinars and our website. 

Easy Usage

MVTec HALCON makes things easy for users: Many sophisticated features and technologies significantly accelerate and streamline machine vision processes – whether rapid prototyping with the intuitive HDevelop development environment, interactive and dialog-based programming or transparent data visualization and inspection. In addition, numerous interfaces to programming languages, industrial cameras, frame grabbers and image acquisition devices ensure maximum consistency. 

Implement deep learning easily  

Deep-learning-based applications can also be implemented very easily – for example, through the convenient training of Convolutional Neural Networks and the user-friendly labeling of images with the MVTec Deep Learning Tool. In addition, user-specific operators can be seamlessly integrated with MVTec HALCON and cameras can be easily calibrated for highest accuracy, which further increases user-friendliness. 

Learn more about the features in the current HALCON versions

Are there any questions left?

Do not hesitate to ask your contact person at MVTec or your local distributor for more advice.  

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